


One Hundred False Starts

by nommunication



Series: I write ficlets to deal with feelings [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean's Deal, Episode: s03e11 Mystery Spot, Gen, Hell, Mystery Spot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-13
Updated: 2012-07-13
Packaged: 2017-11-09 21:51:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/458844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nommunication/pseuds/nommunication
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There’s a reason Dean is always awake before Sam on that Tuesday."</p><p>The trickster may be putting the earth through a time loop, but time runs differently in hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Hundred False Starts

There’s a reason Dean is always awake before Sam on that Tuesday.

An hour or so before Sam wakes up, Dean had a nightmare. He dreamt that he’d died too soon, before the deal was up and that the hellhounds come to claim his soul immediately. He can’t fight them off because he’s incorporeal but when they bite down painfully and drag him he sure feels solid enough.

Still, it isn’t long before they let go again because he’s in hell now and there are screams and the stench of sulphur and a tall, thin demon who welcomes him with a voice that makes his skin crawl.

The dream probably lasts less than a minute, but the time stretches out for hours.

He wakes up sweating, shaking, but a glance over at the other bed tells him he didn’t wake Sammy. He tries to go back to sleep but he knows the attempt is futile. Eventually he gives up the pretence and gets up, tiptoeing as he gets ready for the day so that Sam can sleep a while longer.

As the sun rises higher he stops being careful and just waits for Sam to wake naturally. He turns on the radio and hunts for his boots since he’s no longer trying to creep around on socked feet. By the time he’s lacing up the right foot Asia will play on the radio and Sam will wake up.

 

He doesn’t tell Sam about the nightmare. He’s dreamt about going to hell a lot and he never shares because there’s no point bringing them both down with the thought of Dean’s ticking clock. Still, part of him wants to share this time because this dream was far more vivid, more real than the others. Instead of vague half-formed ideas of hell, he was dragged down and into the pit with startling clarity. The words are on the tip of his tongue in the diner but then Sam is really freaking out about Groundhog Day or something and he decides his brother has enough on his plate. Anyway, the dream is fading already, or so he tells himself.

If it’s a Tuesday where Sam tells him that he keeps dying Dean will cast his mind back to the remnants of the dream before dismissing any connection.

Each time he wakes up from a worse nightmare, though he doesn’t know that because he only remembers having this most recent one. Still, they get steadily more horrific: The hellhounds more impatient, the demons quicker to pin him and start cutting in and the tall one, Alistair, scolds him for being a tease though Dean has no idea what he’s on about and tries to say as much except he’s cut off by searing pain and-

-he wakes up. He looks over to make sure he didn’t wake Sammy. Then knowing sleep is now impossible he creeps around to get ready for the day.

 

When Sam finally wakes up he looks freaked to hell about something, or maybe it’s just morning grouchiness. Dean slaps an over-cheery smile on his face and calls “rise and shine, Sammy!” before turning up the radio. Maybe if he fakes cheeriness to the point of being annoying it will force away the tendrils of the nightmare that try and creep up from his subconscious.

When Sam finally wakes up he looks freaked to hell about something, and it’s probably good he’s distracted or he’d ask why Dean was all dressed and ready so early. Dean sings through his gargling because he doesn’t need to brush his teeth properly – he did that half an hour before Sam woke up.

When Sam finally wakes up he looks freaked to hell about something and won’t let Dean leave the motel room. He tells Dean to ‘go take a shower or something’. Dean doesn’t mention that he already had one hours ago, ice cold to try and chase the burning prickling feeling left in his skin when he awoke.

 

When he wakes up on Wednesday it’s thankfully not from another nightmare – or at least, not one as bad a yesterday. In fact, he barely remembers his dream of hell – and worryingly also can’t remember anything that happened after running into the trickster yesterday.

When Sam suggests they get out of town quickly he’s happy to agree, even if it means skipping breakfast.  Instead he goes to pack up the car.

 

 

This time he doesn’t wake from the nightmare. Instead he’s continually kept pinned on the rack or hung by hooks and chains, as if they will stop him waking up and leaving this place. If that’s the case, they work.

Alistair makes him pay for the frustration of a hundred false starts that Dean doesn’t even remember.

Once Alistair’s anger is satisfied he scales back the torture to something comparatively minimal – just enough to keep Dean on his toes. For thirty years it feels like they’re waiting for something. All Alistair will say is that everything has its proper moment.

After Dean’s year finally ends on earth, the last three months of which he didn’t see, the torture starts back again in earnest. This time at the end of each day Alistair makes him an offer: you can get off the rack if you torture others in your place.

For another thirty years Dean tells him where to shove it. But he’s breaking, slowly, irrevocably.

When it finally gets too much Dean says yes, he’ll do it, anything to get off the rack.

At the side of the soul laid out to be Dean’s first victim, Alistair’s twisted proud smile is lost in a howl of rage as Dean is pulled away from him once more.

Dean wakes up.

It’s Wednesday.


End file.
